A colleague was down to do it but was hit by a the week before and ran support instead. He said at his support station someone came in with a broken cable. The cable turned out to be seized in rust. So after trying unsuccessfully to clear it for a new cable all they could do for him is convert the bike to 2 speed. When asked about it , and why he didn’t change it before, the rider said, “the gears had been working so he left it”. He “did fit a new chain though”. He had but he hadn’t shortened it
My mate I haven’t seen for a few years had a stormer though, when I last looked at the tracker he was 4th at the Dunfermline turn. Looking at his tracker he finished on Wednesday at 16:01. His warm up for the event was doing the LEJOG in 4 days.
Speaking of Dunfermline my old CC manned the turn less than a mile from the house I grew up in. I prefer to come in the other side of Dunfie as its quieter roads. Grange Road is a bit bleak too, there’s one or two nice views of the Abbey but you have to go past the Gasworks to town; I think you turned to the old High School just before. Hopefully you got a good view from the school. Google Maps
Almost exactly the same - 109hr 9 mins. At 01:24 this morning.
It went generally really well, I had a major mechanical (bearings in back wheel collapsed) and had to swap my wheel out at Moffat after riding on a very wobbly wheel for 150k. Probably lost an hour to that.
I also had my Garmin stolen off the bike at Moffat while I was sleeping and lost another hour at least to talking to the controller etc… Originally we thought it might have been a mistake but since it hasnt shown up and I heard that another rider had her Garmin taken also at Moffat, I am pretty sure it was theft by another rider. Based on Danial’s post on the FB group it sounds like there were a small minority of total c*nts.
This also means I’ve lost the GPX for the first ~650k which I am really gutted about (quite apart from the £600 Garmin, that GPX is priceless - can’t get that back on insurance). I think I can bodge something for Strava from the rented gps tracker I had though.
I struggled a bit with the heat and did my best riding at night. Rode through to Malton at 6.30am the first night. Had a really bad time in Brampton coming south but joined up with a great group from Glasgow Green CC for the furst climb which helped immensley.
If I did it again I’d use aerobars just to take the weight off. I also dont need quite as long sleeps as it turns out, I did 4.5, 5.5, 5 and 3 hours (although did not really sleep the first 4.5). I’d cut those 5.5 and 5 hour sleeps back to 4.5. But I am glad I found out by having more than needed rather than less!
Sorry about the Garmin and given the remoteness and size of Moffat I suspect you are right.
But on the ride.
Years ago when I had not long been into road biking and had started to feel the strain of the Trossachs Ton, Glasgow Green invited me to tag on and it was most welcome
I should add that the volunteers are absolutely amazing.
When my Garmin was stolen I was having a full on meltdown and they were incredibly patient with me and helped to calm me down.
Seemed like nothing was too big of an ask. One of them even offered me and my wife a lift the 3 miles to the local Premier Inn when we couldn’t get an Uber at 3am.
I have ridden a few mass participation events and worried about leaving my bike outside the loos, but always joked about leaving next to a much more expensive bike to minimise the allure to a thief. I wonder if thieves target these mass events?
Do Garmins have a unique product number on them. Like if you alerted Garmin Uk that Edge530 54321 had been stolen they could lock it?
The heat did for me. I had heat stress and was heading towards heat exhaustion. Following my mantra of not making a decision till I’ve rested, eaten and drank; I stopped at the next control and did just that including a shower to cool down. After 4 hours I still wasn’t in a fit state to head back out into the heat and abandoned. I had another two hours sleep then got up and had some pizza. About 8pm I felt another wave of fatigue hitting me. I got on an air bed at the control and slept a solid 11 hours, without waking.
Next morning after breakfast I decided to ride back to the start, control by control, and avoid riding in the heat during the day. Via a combination of early starts, sleeping in afternoons, riding in evening and finally overnight I made it back to the start on Thu.
I had a nice tour back along the southbound route, and by the leg from St Ives to Great Easton to Debden was much recovered.
Went home to sleep then returned today to collect my drop bags, and catch up with friends.
I kept a positive mood despite the circumstances I found myself in and have the philosophy “Never be disappointed when you make the right decision”. First and foremost you need to look after yourself, and not dig a much deeper hole it will take a lot longer to recover from.
That is very shocking. I was concerned about getting mine mixed up when I was charging it overnight, but getting it stolen off the bike is another level of awfulness
I had signed up for the 100 hour so got a 5am start. Made it back in 98 hours 50ish… was chasing that finish towards the end.
A number of advantages for the first group out was we had the controls very much to ourselves the treatment was almost like royalty with the fantastic volunteers keen to help. Also even though we all mostly rode alone it was the same bunch I was with on the road in controls etc most of the time so we all got to know each other.
My sleep was poor chasing the 100 hours (1.5, 3,5, 1.0, 0.5). With a poor sleep the night before in the campground it was probably not my wisest decision to continue to chase that 100 hours and not stop for more sleep. Again with the group around me all going through the same we decided to carry on and generally kept out eyes on each other.
Another advantage to the front end is that they all had better gear than me and theft was unlikely to come form a fellow rider
It is a tough course made tougher by the heat and the head wind all the way north. I think I saw a stat from Daniel that DNFs were similar to 2017 so verging on half…
Well done everyone and sorry it didnt go well for you this time @GoLongThenGoHome . If I was as wise as you I would have pulled too or made alternative decisions…
Yeah I was a late start at 12.15 so i was constantly overtaking riders and arrived to the early controls well in the main bulge. I pushed on to Malton at 375k the first night (arriving 6.30am) since there were no beds at Hessle when I got there.
I took quite a lot of sleep - 4.5, 5.5, 5 and 3 hours respectively. I was worried about how I might cope so I was quite conservative. In retrospect, 4.5 hours at each would have been fine, but I am glad I found out this way instead of the opposite.
I really wanted to ride onto Louth on the last night since I got there at 2.30 and had been riding late most nights, but I was in pieces at that point. After eating and showering (kit change) I decided to sleep instead of pushing on. Worked out well as I was able to ride the last 300k at a great pace despite the heat.
I think sub 100 is very possible for me especially with Yad Moss instead of Chapel Fell - I could save 2 hours by using a new back wheel and not having my Garmin nicked for a start. And another 1.5 off the sleeping. I would also put aero bars on just to give another hand position.
I had a fantasy at one point that I might make it in under 100. I buddied up with someone at the start and we stuck together until the finish. We missed our target of sleeping in Moffat after Hessle because I was too tired to go on, but then we absolutely motored round Scotland the next day. At that point we were well ahead of the bulge and I thought we could do Thursday afternoon (we’d had a 10:15 start). But then he developed Achilles tendinitis and I had a bad bonk and we slowed down. I was very happy with a Thursday evening finish. From my guess there were only 7 or so women ahead of me and Debden control said were in the first 200 (bearing in mind the fluctuations that come with the different start times). Of course it’s not a race but I do like to get round an Audax quickly.
Oh I also had a fantastic 9+ hour sleep the night before I started, which really helped me push on. I think I would select the same start time again even if I was aiming for sub 100 - you can wake up late with no stress and have a good breakfast, I hate the normal cycling thing where you have to drag yourself up at 4 to get to the start etc.
I started to read that and thought he’d been better to go to Ryans Bike Surgery, in Inverkeithing. Lol, it looks like the Edinburgh shop sent him there for the build
Yeah. I was in a deep hole at that point because we’d had to decide whether to have dinner or a bed at Brampton the night before and chose beds. So by the time I was at the top (with some walking) I was done.
I had ummed and ahhed about aero bars for ages and got sore hands a couple of times in longer ride so bit the bullet… I would never do an event like this without them. The variety of positions to be in and the variety of muscle group changes are just invaluable for me anyway. And it helps when the head wind comes… and on many downhills you can really tuck and recover… and and… my personal view of course I know they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea… but for a few Grams extra of weight penalty…
I will take them for most riding but for long solos they will go back on.
100 hours was my limit this time with the amount training and build up. Without it as a focus and having put myself in the category (I.e no 100 hours is a DNF) I probably would have taken 110 and slept each night more. Im not sure I lost much time faffing and chatting really and one mi or mechanical cost 20 mins… I chose the test for myself and it kept me focussed in the later stages when it starts getting really tough
I was in such a bad way when I woke up at Brampton though. It took everything I had not to burst into tears while I was eating breakfast (it was just hunger…) - that was when I joined up with the Glasgow Green lot.
Some general thoughts about fuel and energy. I’ve mentioned here before that my plan was to go with a a ton of pre-measured drink mix and Haribos, as well as food at controls. I felt that that largely worked out and did allow me to ride at 0.6 IF across the whole thing. But from the third day I also realised that I was often very close to being underfuelled because I had a few noticeable fades. I tried to never feel hungry on the bike but quite often in the last half hour before a control I was. When I had my big bonk, no amount of Haribos on the bike would bring it back and I reached Barnard Castle in a total state. I had two cups of tea with about ten spoons of sugar before I started feeling more myself again. It also became clear to me that my power outputs were totally correlated with how much carby food I’d had. My riding buddy was a man with a much higher FTP (300 to my 225) so was able to ride more at an IF of 0.5, and he seems to have been much less affected by underfuelling (though he bonked once as well). It’s pretty interesting how it all fits together. But short of having a support van handing me tasty morsels Mark Beaumont style I don’t think I could have crammed in more carbs.
the week before and ran support instead. He said at his support station someone came in with a broken cable. The cable turned out to be seized in rust. So after trying unsuccessfully to clear it for a new cable all they could do for him is convert the bike to 2 speed. When asked about it , and why he didn’t change it before, the rider said, “the gears had been working so he left it”. He “did fit a new chain though”. He had but he hadn’t shortened it 
